Works in progress: Kentridge's Triumphs and Laments

Picture from Artribune

After years of struggles asking permits to the institutions, especially to the Comune di Roma, the South African artist William Kentridge finally succeeded to see the opening of his monumental installation piece approaching, revealing the function that the title clearly expresses: Triumphs and Laments: A Project for the City of Rome. The date is fixed for April 21, 2016. As part of the organization Tevereterno, a rich theatrical program (created in collaboration with composer Philip Miller) will enrich the already grandiose artwork.

Triumphs and Laments will consist in a 550 meter-long frieze erased from the biological patina on the travertine embankment walls that line the Tiber river. Men, women, animals, charioteers will all flow in a procession on Piazza Tevere, between Ponte Sisto and Ponte Mazzini, being it literally an en plein air artwork. Crying, walking, lying, riding horses, standing, and observing, almost 80 figures will include Romulus, Remus, the Ceasars, the Landsknechts, Saint Teresa, Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, and the dead body of Pier Paolo Pasolini. A ghostly sequence of movements, figures, and events will paint and awake the for-too-long-dead walls of the Tiber River. A tasty preview of Triumphs and Laments grand project is currently displayed at the Venice Biennale: “The drawings exhibited are Kentridge’s preliminary sketches for some of the eighty figures that will make up Triumphs and Laments” (Tevereterno).

But what’s the work really about?

On the website we read: “Triumphs and Laments will present a non-chronological history of Rome, exploring the laments that inevitably accompany any triumph; recognizing that one’s triumph is another’s disaster." As Kentridge claimed at a presentation of the frieze in Rome, “If you’re returning in triumph from a war, it means that other people are returning as slaves” (The Art Newspaper). Asked by Dario Pappalardo (La Repubblica), Kentridge replyes, “Being born in South Africa, for me this is a really clear concept: it synthesizes the ambiguity of human history. You can read the same event from two different and opposite perspectives.”

Up until now, $750,000 have been raised by Kentridge, his three galleries—Lia Rumma (Milan, Naples), Marion Goodman (New York, Paris, London), and Goodman Gallery (Johannesburg)—among others, “with some money still to be raised, according to the president of Tevereterno Kristin Jones” (The Art Newspaper).

Differently from street artists Banksy and Haring, Kentridge intends to make a work which evolves through time as part of the environment and of Roman identity, but at the same time as a living creature. Such an ephemeral medium is thus the most suitable and effective! Thriumphs and Laments will be totally disappeared in 5 years assimilated within the dirt of the walls.

Intentions are good and honourable. Bravo Kentridge! We'll keep you posted.

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